Importing cut-list properties from Excel file

Hi, I'm having a bit of trouble finding any information on importing properties to a weldment cut-list from Excel. The weldment I am currently creating is a template for future weldments so nothing should really change when it comes to importing properties. We have a macro that will run and create part numbers if we give it the descriptions of the parts. Ideally I would like to keep this file open and then run a macro which will input part number and description into the cut-list for each cut list item. I.e. it would take row 1 and assign part number and description to cut-list item 1, row 2 to cut-list item 2, etc.... I've searched in the Solidworks API help for anything regarding cutlists cut it doesn't look like there's much information.

Since I don't work with weldments real often, you'll have to be very descriptive of what you're trying to do before I can assist. For example, I'm not clear on whether you're talking about weldment custom properties (modified in the part) or a cut list table in the drawing.

Hey Keith, I'd be happy to describe it. Also I've been going through a lot of your videos to learn about VBA/Solidworks API programming and they've been really helpful and you've done a great job explaining what you're doing and why. Thanks for the lengths you've gone to to help educate the community.

As for the what I'm trying to do... Currently I have a template I am setting up to automate the engineering portion of a tank that has been set up as a weldment which is comprised of roughly 80 members. Many of the components are sheet metal pieces that are lasered and then bent. To accomplish the CAM portion each body is exported to a part where it is converted to sheet metal to get a flat pattern for the CAM software. At the same time we also make a drawing of the exported sheet-metal part for the guys in the shop. This portion is a little outside the scope of the original question however it helps to generate a larger picture. All of our parts have a 7 digit number assigned to them which the exported parts are saved under with a description, as is fairly standard. The issue is that in the cut-list/weldment BOM the part numbers either require manual entry or they are labeled as the as a feature property by default. Editing the part numbers and descriptions in the custom properties for each body would be labor intensive so I'd like to avoid that by having an excel spreadsheet that contains the part numbers and descriptions we generated for all the components and running a macro that looks at one sheet, copies the cell data and imports it into the solid body. Then a second macro will either batch export all the parts, convert them to sheet metal, and save them under the part number and description from the custom properties. This way we will have either a BOM or weldment cut-list that includes the part number and description which matches the data on the exported part.

We have 2 ideas for the is we open the template read-only, modify a few dimensions, batch assign part number/description in custom properties, save as in a project folder, then export and convert bodies.

There's also "Copy Tree" in PDM that will allow us to take the already exported and converted bodies and drawings from the template file and assign a new part number but we'll still need a way to batch assign the new part number to the custom properties.

It's also an option to have one macro that assigns the part number/description in the custom properties and then exports the body and coverts it to sheet metal.

We also designed a macro (outside SW) that operates between Excel and our ERP to batch produce part numbers so having an Excel sheet that matches part numbers to descriptions is no problem.

Sorry if that's way too much detail but do you think this is something API can or should be used to accomplish?